WDW Parks Expansion Plans Recap and Wrap Up

Over the last half year, I posted here a series of expansion plans for the Walt Disney World Resort parks with my hypothetical takes at how I would grow and improve the parks. This was a big project for me with some really good results I think.

This post is a recap and wrap up, plus a closer look into a couple of my favorite lands. First, the look back at the posts.

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We started with two plans for the Magic Kingdom back in October.

Magic Kingdom Plan A - This was my attempt at a realistic plan, incorporating the real additions coming soon and a couple of other small but impactful additions to the park, mostly in Tomorrowland and Adventureland. Of course, this was made before the Main Street Theater was cancelled, so it still remains in this park.

Magic Kingdom Plan B - This is the crazy ambitious dream plan that goes a little overboard with new additions to the park. Major additions come to Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, but every land sees something new and exciting, including expansions to Fantasyland and Frontierland in the northern undeveloped area of the park.

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EPCOT was the focus in January with 3 versions of the park with 3 different goals.

EPCOT Plan A - This is another realistic plan, though it is on the ambitious side. The focus was to redefine the central spine of Future World, add new relevant characters to pavilions in both halves of the park, and add a new country to World Showcase. I defied expectations and instead of Brazil or Spain, I went with Saudi Arabia because I was interested in how some Middle Eastern representation would look in World Showcase. Plus, I followed the strong rumor and placed a new hotel outside the park gates.

EPCOT Plan B - This plan is the ambitious plan if the park were to go all in on characters and IP. It includes many of the additions from Plan A, plus new Future World pavilions for space featuring WALL-E, the seasons featuring Bambi, and a new take on Horizons at the center of the park. New World Showcase countries include Peru featuring the Emperors New Groove and Equatorial Africa featuring Tarzan, plus all other countries get a character based attraction.

EPCOT Plan C - This big plan is an alternate take on Plan B, where instead there are no characters anywhere in the park and actually assumes that some current additions didn;t actually happen. New Future World pavilions are created for Imagination, Weather, Health, and Computers plus Horizons from the last plan. New World Showcase countries featuring all original attractions are Ethiopia, India, South Africa, and Malaysia, plus Peru and Saudi Arabia from past plans.

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Hollywood Studios had just one plan posted back in April, because I decided that so much was already happening to the park that a realistic plan was redundant.

Hollywood Studios Plan A - The goal of this big plan was to follow the lead of Toy Story Land and Galaxys Edge by creating more fully immersive single universe lands that represent the other studio brands of the Company. So that led to the creation of new lands for Marvel, Cars, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc, and Toontown, plus some additions to Sunset Boulevard to represent live action films.

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Lastly, two plans for Animal Kingdom were posted early this summer.

Animal Kingdom Plan A - This is a step above a realistic plan, but with this being my favorite park, I got a little carried away. I added one all new land, North America, with attractions and an animal trail. I rethemed one land, changing Planet Watch to Zootopia with a new attraction. And I made major additions to Dinoland with a new coaster and a heavily reworked version of Mystic Manor. Plus a couple small additions to other lands.

Animal Kingdom Plan B - This might be the largest and craziest of my dream plans because it basically doubles the park in one move. There are new lands for Europe, North America, Australia, and South America, all with many attractions, both original and IP.

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Some stats for these plans.

Across all the plans, there are approximately 20 new lands, approximately 30 new IPs represented, and approximately 80 new attractions. That's a lot.

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To conclude this wrap up, I decided to share enlarged plans of my favorite land from each park. This was a bit of a difficult decision for some of the parks, but I was able to decide on just 4.


In the Magic Kingdom, I choose Tomorrowland from Plan B.

I took inspiration from the organic canopy of the future TRON attraction to create a new sweeping element that crosses the east side of the land, incorporating the entrance to Space Mountain, a new elevated table service restaurant, and a permanent outdoor stage. The other big move for the land is the redesign of the Autopia into a very organic and winding track that includes a flyover above the public walkway and around a large freestanding rocket. The concept of the land is that the setting is an intergalactic science showcase of the future. All the new attractions support this idea by showing various fantasy science/technology topics. Time travel, alien technology, robotics are featured in the additions.


For EPCOT, I decided on Future World Central from Plan C.

The big change here is a complete rethinking of the spine through the center of the park in geometry and logic. The goal was to open up the center of the park, make it greener and more organic, and add new attractions that make sense in the core of the park. The two new attractions are new versions of Imagination and Horizons which along with Spaceship Earth form the thesis statement of the park. These are three attractions about the bigger picture of human progress and the topics of the rest of Future World support them. The center of the land is redeveloped with a new high tech fountain, a permanent stage and viewing area, and a new counter service restaurant that serves healthy Earth based food and features a 360 degree outdoor view of Future World. Also visible in this plan are a pair of new outdoor attractions for Future World East and West with the intention of adding kinetics to the area. A trackless water based teacups style ride sits in the west side and a jetpack spinner is placed in the east side.



In the Hollywood Studios Plan, I picked Toontown.


This is an urban take on Toontown, set in the downtown of the city featured in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The entrance it through a pair of tunnels from Sunset Boulevard and lead to a cartoony and exagerated city street. First is the downtown area, which includes a Ducktales suspended dark ride in the McDuck Bank, a large spinning dark ride taxi tour of the city, an apartment themed meet and greet location, and many very themed retail locations. The other end of the land is Toontown Gardens Park, which includes a carousel of animated animals and the Toontown Amphitheater, playing Fantasmic. The highlight attraction is a boat ride through the Sorcerers Workshop, where magic lets us travel right into the animated classics.


And for Animal Kingdom, I choose Europe from Plan B.

This land takes over more than half of Dinoland and serves as the mythological animal land in my version of this park. It is set in a Greek village adjacent to a mountain and the ruins of an ancient temple. The town square includes a restaurant and a new version of Mystic Manor that focuses just on mythological animals from history. The mountain, which is topped by a giant ruined statue head, holds a flume dark ride based on Hercules and focusing on his trials that feature animals of mythology. The rest of the land holds an outdoor spinning coaster around and through the ruins and an adjacent spring that is guarded by a dragon.

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And that's the conclusion to this huge project, for now at least. At least a couple of attractions from this project are likely to be future posts.

But I also want to be able to move on to other original projects. In fact, I have tentatively decided to retire from doing these expansion plans for existing parks and really just do original projects from now on. That means new parks with new themes, and new attractions for both existing parks and new parks. That's way more fun and more challenging for me, so that's what I want to do from now on.

So there will be another post this month, an analysis essay project that I have been wanting to do for a long time about theme park layout form. And then likely an attraction the month after that.

Magic Kingdom 2017 Plan: The Dream Version

Two weeks ago, I posted the first part of a series I am starting with new plans for the Walt Disney World Parks. That one was a very realistic plan for what I think could happen to the Magic Kingdom in the next 5-10 years. It was a limited plan but still brought some good changes. This is the complementary dream plan.

This version of The Magic Kingdom is a much more ambitious plan. Since the park is already well built out, there is mot a lot of true expansion possibilities, so it is not as big and extreme as some other posts in the past. But its still a huge expansion concept, and one that I think is realistic aside from how expensive it would definitely be. This would like a DCA expansion level investment, but to a park that doesn't desperately need it.

This plan, like the realistic plan, is based on the real additions that will be coming to the park in the next few years. It also caries over a couple of the elements from the plan two weeks ago, but not everything.

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So to start, I'll quickly jump through the elements that remain from the previous post and recap them. Follow along on the map and zoom in, there is a lot of detail.

The monorail station expansion to add capacity remains in this plan, and would be even more needed as the park grows in this concept. The station grows to add one more car of capacity, which is a small step to fix the bigger transportation problem.

The Main Street Theater off the East Side Street and Walt's Restaurant, replacing Tomorrowland Terrace, are both in this version of Main Street. The existing Terrace is an underused prime spot for a more high profile location, and making it the Club 33 location for the park seems like the perfect opportunity.

In Adventureland, the Adventure Ropes also remains because its a totally unique attraction and fits the small location well. A ropes course similar the one in Shanghai fits the style of the land perfectly.

The refurb for Big Thunder Mountain should happen to bring the explosion scene. Since this has been done in all the other parks, this is an obvious addition.

The Haunted Mansion restaurant is in this version, thought its surroundings change a bit. Set in the side house ballroom during a ghostly party, the restaurant is located just to the north of the house and is reached through the graveyard. The interactive queue area is removed for this addition.

A new darkride for Storybook Circus, Mickey's Madhouse, stays in this plan. The ride is a trip through the wonders of the circus and features characters from a variety of animated films.

And finally in Tomorrowland, a new toned down version of Alien Encounter replaces the empty space that was Stitch. This would be an easy move and a fan pleasing decision to bring back a new PG level version of the classic attraction. The Carousel of Progress is also removed and replaced with a Big Hero 6 dark ride set in the science showcase.

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Now to the new additions, going land by land through the park.

There's no additional attractions for Main Street, but there is the minor addition of full scale facades on the East Bypass, replacing the shrubbery and hiding the back of the existing Main Street buildings. The fencing and landscaping actually works pretty well, but ideal case, why not put up full detail facades. 

Adventureland has two changes in addition to Adventure Ropes. First, the Magic Carpets are removed to clear up that congestion and restore the tropical focus to that area. Along with it, the Agrabah style facades are reworked and expanded in the Polynesian style so that contradiction goes away. Replacing the carpets is a tropical springs water feature with enchanted fountains and a small stage. Visually, I think this would clean up the land, would add a dynamic water element, and be a permanent location for theme appropriate entertainment. I think the Magic Kingdom is lacking in entertainment that really fits well in the lands compared to the other parks, so I'm trying to add some of that as well. 

The bigger addition is a large Indiana Jones attraction behind Pirates of the Caribbean. In the last post, this was a copy of the existing Indiana Jones Adventure, but in this version, I included my original water coaster/EMV hybrid attraction that I posted here earlier this year. That version was based on an adventure through Roman catacombs. This version would instead have a South American Jungle theme, but use the same track and ride system with just different set elements. If you have not seen that post before, its a really good one with some great images, so check it out. Here's a preview of the motion of the ride vehicle.

In Frontierland, there is only one attraction added, but it is probably the largest in this plan and causes some other smaller changes. The only Frontierland expansion area is to the north of the river, outside of the berm with access along the side of Big Thunder Mountain. That means that there would now be 3 E tickets in close proximity in the dead end pocket on the west side of the river. I think that is a crowd flow disaster, so I felt the need to add a pedestrian connection over the river, separating the body of water into an intact north loop and the closed off south loop. The riverboat is still able to travel on the north loop, so the dynamic motion of the water transportation is not lost. It also means that Tom Sawyers Island is accessible by path, not just boat. The rafts could still operate, but now as an attraction, not only transportation. Canoes could also be added from the existing docks to circle this new south loop. The final small change to the land is the retheming of the exterior architecture of Splash Mountain to better fit the western frontier style. Splash Mountain has never quite fit in with its Georgia clay mountain and southern mill architecture, but I think that it could be easily fixed with simple architecture redressing.

The major attraction that is added is a large raft flume dark ride along and through a mountain facade that explores the world of the bandits of the old west. The queue begins at the Splash Mountain courtyard, goes over a bridge over the Big Thunder maintenance track, and takes you through a series of frontier barns where the bandits hid out. A bridge takes you over the river, right along the train track bridge, and towards the loading revolving table. After loading and a quick float towards the mountain, the ride starts with a couple small dark ride scenes of western life, then up the interior lift hill to the top of the mountain. There is an outdoor section on top of the mountain followed by a small drop into the mountain again for more slow dark ride scenes, then another exterior section, concluding with the main drop that takes you towards and under the train tracks. The attraction would be highly visible from the train, riverboat, and from parts of Frontierland and the expansion to Fantasyland, but because it is so far back from the rest of the park, it is still relatively hidden away in the woods of the frontier.

Liberty Square has more changes than the realistic version from two weeks ago. First, since the Riverboat does not run in this area any more, a full sized Sailing Ship is built in the dock, open for exploration and serving as an overlook of the river beyond.

The bigger change is what happens to the existing Hall of Presidents building. In this plan, instead of just refurbing the existing giant showbuilding with a new show, I am trying something more unusual by turning it into two attractions. First, the entrance and front lobby area is reformed into a smaller theater space for a new show on the scale of Great Moments with Mr Lincoln that tell a rotating variety of Great American stories. With the American Adventure being the superior show and theater, I think this could stand to be reduced in size and scope if the overall land could be improved with more attraction capacity.

The back half of the building, the main theater space, becomes a new dark ride with its entrance on the west side of the building by the market. The attraction is a Sleepy Hollow classic dark ride with the story of Ichabod Crane and his escape from the Headless Horseman. Guests would board carriages for the dark trip through early Americana. This would involve expanding the showbuilding in the adjacent open space on the left side of the castle but the tree density would remain to hide it.

A lot happens to Fantasyland, including what I assume will be the most controversial move. But also a couple smaller moves. First, in the open space to the right side of the castle, I have included something similar to the dungeon under the Paris castle, a large lifelike dragon in a small cave, hidden away by the deep forest in a rocky outcropping. This is such a cool and unique experiential element that would improve any park it was placed in.

Nearby, the roof of the Teacups is replaced with the glass style roof from Paris, which is much more aesthetically pleasing, starting the creation of a Wonderland area. The Tomorrowland restaurant right next to it, Cosmic Rays, is rethemed as the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall to join this new area. This joint between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland has always bothered me in a way because all the other joints between lands in the park are transitioned much more cleanly. This just sits two different styles right next to each other. So changing this restaurant to fit Fantasyland instead starts to help. The restaurant is now only accessed from the northern half and the side facing the hub is subtlety rethemed. The transition to Tomorrowland now takes you through a more heavily wooded area to block the view all the way into either land.

The Winnie the Pooh ride remains as it is on the interior, but the exterior is rethemed and expanded on with a rockwork rear facade so that it actually looks like the forest, not just the castle walls with a tree in front of it. Across the castle, Philharmagic is removed (because I imagine it being relocated to Hollywood Studios) and replaced with a Sleeping Beauty 4D movie/animatronics show. In my overall plan for the 4 parks, I have attraction representation for all the other princesses, and this was the best place for this IP to go. I imagine it being a normal 4D movie led by the three fairies but end with the appearance of the Maleficent dragon as an actual animatronic that looms over the audience.

The big change to the land is the removal of a classic ride in exchange for access to a huge expansion area. I decided to remove Small World and replace it with a Tangled trackless dark ride and a path to the new northern expansion of the land. After seeing the original version of this ride in Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom version with its lack of facade and shorter track is disappointing. And there is really no easy way to get to the area north of Fantasyland without sacrificing something. So I decided that this move was worth it for the overall park.

The Tangled attraction is a copy of the trackless one I proposed for Disneyland and posted here last year. The facade can also be pushed back to open up this very crowded area and form a little Tangled mini area for the land. When planning what to do to Fantasyland, I made an effort to define individual zones that have single thematic identities, like what happens here for Tangled. There's Storybook Circus, Wonderland, Fantasy Forest, the Castle Courtyard, a small London area by Peter Pan, which gets new detailed facades, the Tangled area, and two more in the north expansion.

The path between Tangled and Pinocchio is initially themed to London to align with Peter Pan across the path, but then leads through a bridge over the existing backstage road below and then into a medieval Paris courtyard. Here is a Hunchback of Notre Dame spinning dark ride, like Cartoon Spin, through the exciting Festival of Fools. Not a story recap dark ride, this really just focuses on the gypsy and festival aspect of the film. Retail and themed spaces surround to make this feel like a real village courtyard.

The French style makes a clean transition to the final new area, New Orleans, nestled along an expanded north end of the Rivers of America. The river bends farther east than it currently does, making the round trip length of the north loop approximately the same as the current Disneyland loop. The Riverboat now departs from a dock in this land, where it is more thematically appropriate.

The land includes the narrow bending streets, upper level bridges connecting buildings, and a variety of retail and dining. There is a counter service with outdoor covered seating and a full sized Tiana's restaurant overlooking the river with outdoor patio seating. The main attraction is a slow boat dark ride into the Bayou. The land connects to Liberty Square as well by a path along the side of the Haunted Mansion. The path leads into a New Orleans style cemetery and emerges from a mausoleum in the Haunted Mansion graveyard with a winding path leading back to Liberty Square and Frontierland.

Finally, Tomorrowland is almost entirely changed. This land could use some focus and to do that, a lot could be removed or altered.

Starting at the Hub, the entirety of the south building is changed. Monsters Inc and Buzz, two properties that don't really fit Tomorrowland at all, are removed and replaced with one huge two part attraction based on futuristic time travel. Starting with a Timekeeper like introductory movie in the 360 theater, guests then board the time vehicles for the dark ride portion where we jump around through significant times and places of the past, present, and future.

The electric autopia is completely rebuilt and reimagined as a more organic and natural track instead of the literal Indy speedway layout. The new plan features a lot of curves, overpasses, diverting tracks, and caves to drive through. The feature element is a raised loop of track out over the main path of the land, bringing some dynamic action on multiple levels to the land. A tall rocket sits right in the middle of the loop as well. Also, for fun, follow the track, it is one big loop. I point this out just because of how long it took me to figure out and draw.

The east side of the land is the final area of change. In an effort to blend the organic transparent canopy of the new TRON building into the land, I have included a new sweeping canopy structure along the east side of the land. It also ties into a new facade to the Space Mountain entry building. The canopy covers a new permanent and integrated stage for the land for more theme appropriate entertainment, not dance parties. Above the canopy is a rotating second level table service restaurant that overlooks the land. Sonny Eclipse is moved to this restaurant as well to continue entertaining diners of the future. The rotation and the colorful dynamics of the canopy add a more interesting backdrop to the land.

The last element in the land is a new enclosed show scene for the train along the south east corner of the loop. It is a look into a futuristic city, then into a time portal that takes the train back in time to the prehistoric era, including an encounter with a group of dinosaurs, and then through another portal to the early 20th century America of Main Street.

That's all the details of the plan. Over a dozen changed or new attractions and a couple restaurant are added to strengthen and diversify the lands of the park.

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So that's what I think right now would make a dream Magic Kingdom. 

What about you? Leave a comment with what parts you liked or what other ideas you have for your own dream Magic Kingdom.

This series will continue with similar plans for EPCOT, but no promise on when that will be. I am just starting out with redrawing the existing base plan, then will need time to create the new plans. But check back and follow of twitter to know whats coming next. 

Magic Kingdom 2017 Plan: A Realistic Approach

Today is Part 1 of my new plans for the Walt Disney World Resort. These are my for fun, hypothetical plans for how I would expand and improve the 4 parks of the Resort. I last published plans for these parks 2 and a half years ago, and a lot has changed. New attractions have opened and are coming soon to the parks, and I think I have improved as a designer as well. Plus the maps are a jump in quality.

For each of the parks, I am actually planning to do multiple versions that explore different goals. At the least, I plan to do a realistic plan that looks at what I think could really be done in the next few years and a dream buildout plan where I go full bluesky with no limits.

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This first post is the realistic approach to the Magic Kingdom. The corresponding dream plan will follow in just a week or two. There's some elements from this plan that will be repeated there, but plenty of new as well. So let's jump into what I am proposing for the immediate future of the Magic Kingdom.

Including the real things that have been announced, this plan features 13 additions or changes on a variety of scales. In this plan, I really tried to focus on adding or refurbing, not removing attractions unless they are already on the decline. And these are all things that I think could really happen. 

First, outside the park, I show an expanded Monorail Station. The Monorails and the rest of the transportation system from the TTC to the park have somewhat of a capacity and reliability problem. An obvious solution is new Monorails that are larger and longer to hold more guests. I show the station being extended by one car length for this hypothetical updated system. Transportation is a huge focus right now and this seems like a great first step to work out this problem. 

Inside the park, the upcoming Main Street Theater is shown on the East Side Street. The theater shown is the same size and scale as the Hyperion in California Adventure. 

In the Hub, I have replaced the Tomorrowland Terrace Restaurant with a new Table Service/Club 33 style restaurant, called Walt's. The architecture is altered to place the restaurant in Main Street, not Tomorrowland. The facade is loosely inspired by the Saratoga Bottling Plant in Saratoga Springs, New York, the city that inspired the architecture style of the parks Main Street. The rooms are based on the history and lands of the park, and the main room overlooks the Hub with prime views to the castle. We know that the parks are wanting to add Club 33 style locations and more high value dining, and this is an unused prime space, so this seems like an obvious addition to me. 

Moving to Tomorrowland, the Tron ride is shown adjacent to Space Mountain. In this plan, I suggest refurbing the existing Autopia with electric vehicles, which would be an improvement in efficiency and long term cost, plus improve the surrounding environment by eliminating the gas smell and loud noise. This is something that seems like an obvious long term benefit if the Autopia is to existing long term. 

To replace the basically dead Stitch attraction, my plan proposes restoring the guest favorite Alien Encounter, reworked to be somewhere between the two versions on the intensity scale. I never saw the original, but I know it was popular and scary and would be celebrated if brought back. This would be a relatively easy restoration, because so much of the infrastructure is still intact between versions. 

The major addition to the land in my plan is a new dark ride based on Big Hero 6 to replace Carousel of Progress. This is the best remaining expansion space on this side of the park, so realistically, I think it will eventually be taken at the expense of the attraction currently there. I still believe the best plan for the Carousel of Progress is for it to be relocated to the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. The new dark ride could be based in a science showcase setting, which would fit into Tomorrowland well. Using the futuristic science and tech frame to get into the attraction, it could then expand into a more adventurous story about the Big Hero 6 team using the technology of the future. The science showcase area could also feature a new meet and greet with the team and Baymax, relocated from EPCOT. We know that there is the goal to add more IPs to the parks, and this is one that actually could fit well in Tomorrowland, so I think this is a great solution to expand the land. 

In Fantasyland, there is not much space for easy additions. Plus, it is still relatively fresh from the recent Fantasyland Forest Addition. The one addition I have in this plan is a new circus themed dark ride to the north of the land. This would only require shifting the backstage road and relocating the meet and greets in the current tent. The new attraction entrance and queue would be in that tent and the meet and greets would be in the unused small tent to the right. The ride would be a Mickey led trip through the wonders of the circus, with a variety of characters performing acts. This is of course based on the never realized dark ride developed for Disneyland. This is an easy expansion pad with a potential theme that we know has been developed, so I could see this happening successfully. 

Over in Liberty Square, The Hall of Presidents is refurbished into an attraction more like Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. The bigger addition is a Haunted Mansion themed restaurant. With the recent success of themed dining, and the huge popularity of Haunted Mansion, this seems like a completely obvious addition. I did not want to remove Columbia Harbor House for it however, so I placed it to the north of the Mansion along the river. A new path could be built along the water to the Mansion Side House, set next to the graveyard, where there is a perpetual haunted Dinner taking place. The expanded interactive crypts are removed for this to work. 

The only alteration in this plan to Frontierland is to refurb Big Thunder Mountain Railroad so it has the explosive finale from the Disneyland version. The development is already done, so I don't know why this hasn't been done. 

Last, Adventureland has the biggest addition in my proposed plan. To balance the big addition of Tron on the other side of the park, I suggest the addition of the Indiana Jones Adventure to the south expansion area of Adventureland. Again, since this is an existing attraction, the development would be minimized. And we know this is a popular and high capacity attraction that would bring the crowds and be highly successful. It would be the biggest investment of everything I have in this plan, but if done a few years after Tron, it would be a great addition to the park. The queue would weave along the Jungle Cruise river towards a temple in the jungle. Inside the cave queues would look into the jungle cruise river and feature many scenes similar to the Disneyland Version. Instead of going underneath the train tracks, here the path leads above to a camouflaged rocky bridge to the showbuilding. 

The final addition is a ropes course attraction like the one recently opened at Shanghai Disneyland. This would fit perfectly into the space adjacent to the Swiss Family Treehouse, and would be a low cost but super unique addition to the park. 

Below are some enlarged views of the additions to the park. 

Again, these are all things that I really think could happen in the next 5-10 years and would benefit the park. The dream plan that is being worked on and will be posted soon is quite a bit bigger and more ambitious. 

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So while we wait for that next post, let me know what you think about this strategy of realistic and dream plans. And leave a comment about what in this plan do you most wish would really happen. 

A Tangled Tale

The design post for this month is another attraction that I have proposed for the Magic Kingdom based on Tangled.

I decided to make the possibly controversial decision of removing Peter Pans Flight in order to create a modern darkride that completes the already established Tangled inspired area. In my plan, I also included a new modern and relocated Peter Pans Flight, making this decision somewhat easier. Because the existing darkride is suspended, I believe it would be possible to install a double level attraction, allowing it to be a bit longer and larger than many other comparable Fantasyland rides. The façade is redesigned starting at the transition to Liberty Square to match the style of the Tangled restrooms across the path, continuing all the way around the corner. The detailed facades create an immersive mini-land for Fantasyland based on one of the most popular current stories.

Though I normally am against book report style dark rides, I felt that this was a good opporunity for a ride like this because of two factors. First, the small size of the space forces a condensed ride, so it helps to use a plot that is already known. And second, I believe there are multiple iconic songs in the film that have to be included. Without following the plot, it would be difficult to hit these big moments.

The queue begins at the armory of the town. The standby queue turns right and runs along the facades, entering the guard office and passing through storage rooms, where barrels and boxes surround the path. Each area of the queue is heavily detailed, including plenty of wanted posters. It then rejoins with the Fastpass+ queue and travels into the formal hall of the armory, with painting depicting the many successes of the royal guard and a row of ornate decorative spears in the center of the room. The two queues then merge as directed by a cast member and into the stable area, leading up to the loading area. At this split, wheelchair guests are directed straight to the unload area.

Guests board a wooden carriage-styled vehicle, seating 2 or 3 per row with two rows. The vehicle is able to rotate 360 degrees on the tracked base, like an omnimover. Guests load the vehicle on a slowly moving loading belt. The vehicles would dispatch approximately every 10 seconds, similar to the existing dark rides, but because the vehicles are larger, it would have a better capacity.

After loading and seat check, the vehicle pulls forward towards a painting of Rapunzel on the wall, beginning the telling of the story of the lost princess. The vehicle makes a u turn and begins moving slowly downhill. The ceiling above and wall to the left are painted just like Rapunzel’s art, retelling how the princess was born and subsequently disappeared, narrated by Rapunzel herself. The art comes to life with a projection effect as we pass each major element. At the bottom of the ramp, we find ourselves in the tower, with Rapunzel to our left in front of her window, singing “When Will my Life Begin.” The next few scenes take place inside the single room tower, so the rotation of the vehicle is used to misdirect where we are in the space, making it believable that everything is taking place in the tower. Rapunzels hair wraps all around the scenes, acting as borders and visual barriers while literally tying the grouping of scenes together. The vehicle turns around the corner, rotating a full 180 degree to face a second scene of Rapunzel in the tower, this time showing her longing to visit the lights and painting the lights on the tower wall. After another spin and turn, we find Mother Gothel singing “Mother Knows Best” to Rapunzel, convincing her to stay. Just on the other side of a thick curtain, the story progresses, showing Flynn Rider held captive in a chair and being interrogated by Rapunzel, and eventually agreeing to take her to the lights. We rotate right to face a stone wall, where the shadows of Flynn and Rapunzel descending down the tower are projected on a stone wall. We turn to find the forest, with physical trees augmented by projected landscapes above the brush. Flynn stands in the center, by a tree, complaining about his wanted poster while Rapunzel frolics through the projected forest between the trees. Around the bend, we see a small sign for the Snuggly Duckling, and hear the raucous music in the distance as we approach the front door.

Through the door is the largest scene of the attraction, “I've Got a Dream.” In the double height tavern, multiple thugs sit underneath the rough wood beams, listening to the Piano Playing Thug and Rapunzel alternate verses while Flynn is hung on one of the wooden columns. The Piano Thug sits of course at his piano on the stage in the corner while Rapunzel stands on a table, surrounded by singing thugs, telling us of her dream to see the lights. In the room are many of the recognizable thugs, including Gunter the interior designer, Ulf the mime, and the cupid thug, who is spinning circles overhead. We continue past Rapunzel and the bar, turning right and beginning to go uphill. Again, paintings on the ceiling tell the story of how they made it into the city. At the top, we rotate left to face animatronics of the King and Queen lifting up the first lantern as “I See the Light” begins. The vehicle moves out over simulated glistening water, through a sea of floating lanterns, and turn to face the boat holding Rapunzel and Flynn.

The lanterns of the room gently float in place and twinkle, aided by mirrors and projections to create and endless field of lights. Ahead, we ride back into the forest, where Mother Gothel reprises “Mother Knows Best”, consoling Rapunzel. Through the trees, we see a projection of Flynn sailing away on the boat. Through the next door, we are back in the tower, right at the moment that Rapunzel realizes her identity. She stands in the center of the room, looking above at the large ceiling of paintings, which come to life with fiber optics and projections, creating an effect similar to the movie. As we turn and rotate into the next room, we see Flynn confronting Gothel before turning again to an alcove, where we see the shadow of Gothel falling over and out the window. We continue on and turn to see Rapunzel and Flynn together, happily ever after. Just around the corner is unload, back at the stable, and the exit path leads to a new gift shop that is split with the new Frozen attraction next door.

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I'll be back next month with another discussion post on March 9th and a design post on March 23rd! Leave a comment with what you want to see coming up soon!

And I am still working on the existing plan for Disneyland plus another major theme park that I am excited to design expansion plans for. Hopefully those will be coming up sooner than later!

Mary Poppins' Jolly Holiday

Now we get to the first of hopefully many attraction concepts. As much as I love designing the overall site plan for a park, getting more specific with an attraction is even more fun. I have developed this attraction very thoroughly over the last year because it is one of my favorite concepts. I'm going to start with a walk through of the entire experience, and then end with some comments about my design choices.


Along the new side street of Main Street, guests are invited to join Mary Poppins on a musical journey through the city park and beyond.

The façade of 17 Cherry Tree Lane sits at the end of Center Street, with unassuming building facades on either side, including a Kite Shop on the left. The queue entrance to the right of the house leads either into the house or down along an exterior extended queue switchback, which is partially covered. Temporary queues can travel down the street and back.

Both the Fastpass+ and Standby queues lead through a side door of the house, passing through the entry hall and taking Fastpass+ guests through a hallway of the house filled with family photos and Standby guests through the children’s playroom, filled with boxes of toys. Both queues lead out of the house and into a simulated outdoor garden, filled with meticulously manicured hedges and colorful flowers. Just before entering this garden, guests meet a cast member who asks if guests prefer bench or horse seating and give them a card displaying their choice. The queues both reach the load distribution point, just after a split off from each queue that leads to a dedicated wheelchair loading line. There is also an covered and outdoor overflow queue for standby guests. At distribution, guests give their card to the cast member and are sent to one of the 20 loading lines, labeled with 'chalk' art. A full height wooden garden gate separates each line from the center load room. The intent is that guests do not see the ride vehicle until the moment it is time to board.

The vehicle in load form resembles a carousel, with alternating rows of horse and benches. The benches sit 3 each, the horse rows have 2 one person horses, and each carousel has one wheelchair bench, with a flip up bench seat that allows for one wheelchair and one seated passenger. The bench seats use a lapbar restraint system while the horses use a custom seatbelt system. The horse seats will consequently only be available to those above a certain height, hence the card system to ease loading.

Each row of the carousel is its own independent trackless vehicle, which are linked together into longer sections. Each 'train' is actually two separate and independently moving linked sections of vehicles, the first made of 10 passenger vehicles plus a header vehicle and the second made of the remaining 10 passenger vehicles. That allows the carousel to unwind from its original shape and follow the undulating track. In order to maintain the carousel look during these turns, the floor pieces are oversized and vertically offset so that they can slide above and below each other, always forming a solid floor. This is best shown in the elevation and plan below.

While waiting in the load lines, guests hear Mary and Bert on the other side of the gate talking about taking a trip to the park. The gates then open and cast members and 'chalk' lines guide guests to their row. The carousel vehicle sits at the center of the room, with a false stationary carousel roof canopy and ornate center piece completing the illusion. The vehicle is level with the ground for ease of loading, so the vehicles sit in a channel below grade.

After loading, the carousel begins to slowly spin as we hear Mary and Bert again, talking about the park and suggesting that we come along too. At that point the carousel travels straight ahead, out from the canopy and through a large iron garden gate and into the next scene. As soon as that carousel exits the room, an empty vehicle from the unload station comes into the room, gets set in place, and then the loading process begins again. Ideally, this would be a 2 minute load to load cycle.

As we pass through the gate, we begin to hear the song 'Jolly Holiday' and find ourselves gliding right through the fanciful park. Physical trees and flowers pair with projected backdrops to create the environment. We pass a combination of projected and animatronic animals, including squirrels, butterflies, farm animals, and of course a group of dancing penguins. The vehicle makes a complete circle, the first of many, and then passes straight into another circle with a smaller four horse carousel in the center. The carousel spins in the same direction, carrying animatronic figures of Mary and Bert. 'Jolly Holiday' ends as we move ahead out of this circle and into the next.

The halves of the train separate and stop opposite of each other, surrounding a small double sided bandstand and a ring of animatronic pearly musicians. Each side of the bandstand has a Musion surface where the dancing Mary and Bert are projected, while the ring of moving musicians rotates. We stay stationary for the beginning of 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious', while Mary and Bert sing and dance. Soon, we make a full rotation around the scene before continuing on. We pass out of the park and into the city as we hear 'Step in Time'.

The carousel is now traveling between the rooftops of London, filled with the silhouettes of dancing chimneysweeps. The chimneysweeps are Musion projections on glass panels all around the rooftops. The carousel makes two separate circles around the rooftops before turning away and passing one last roof. It turns to the left, passing Mary and Bert sitting on the roof edge, waving goodbye. Just through the door is the unload area, where guests exit the carousel while in straight train form, and then exit to the gift shop, themed as a kite store, as 'Let’s Go Fly a Kite' plays.

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So I hope you enjoyed the trip I described through the attraction.

This ride has had a long development process for me. I guess I drew an attraction in on Main Street for the first time about 4 years ago, but didn't get to developing it until 2 years ago. It was always Mary Poppins though. My reasoning for wanting to include a dark ride based on Mary Poppins was entirely the music, so I made that the focus. A ride based on memorable song can cause problems though because it very easily leads to the film summary dark ride, which sometimes works, but alot of times doesnt. I'm going to talk more about that once I get around to the next attraction plan: A Tangled Tale. I knew that the songs were to be the focus but that the story that tied the songs together wouldn't be modern darkride friendly because of its age and scope. I wanted a narrow focus. So, in the tradition of classic attractions, this was meant to be an environmental ride. The entirety of the story is that Mary and Bert are going to the park and we are invited on a fantastic musical journey.

The choice for the unique and admittedly unrealistically low capacity ride vehicle is from internet rumor that Tony Baxter worked on an attraction much like this with a somewhat similar vehicle idea. In fact, I believe that concept was also called Mary Poppins' Jolly Holiday, but its a pretty natural attraction name. In a park that is full of standard dark ride vehicles, I thought that something unique would be welcome and that this was a concept worth exploring just for the design challenge. And it was definitely a challenge. The attraction footprint that I could realistically fit into the east parking lot dictated the size of the show scenes, which dictated the turn radius, which dictated the size of the vehicle. It's a little lower capacity than I would like, but it's the best I could work with.

Lastly, I debated heavily if there should even be an attraction on Main Street because of crowd flow patterns. And I'm still not convinced it would be a good idea. I gave it the primest location possible, terminating the view of Central Street to draw crowds. I image though that it would be lightly attended during the early day as guests spread out from Main Street and then more popular around parade time and late afternoon as guests return to the front of the park. That would probably be considered a failure by those in charge, but I think it would add a new dimension to the land.

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An attraction specific discussion question this week.

This is a dark ride based on a property 51 years old. The current Disney company would likely never build this now because it doesn't have the kind of synergy, marketing, and merchandising they would like. In your opinion, should those factors be important to the selection and design of a theme park experience? 

This time, I'm not going to type out a complete answer for this. I'm going to give quick thoughts and then likely elaborate in the comments.

Short answer: I don't know. Classic and successful original attractions don't have the traditional synergy that is now so desired. Modern attractions (which is hard to qualify since we've barely gotten any in the last decade plus) are either heavily IP based (Toy Story Mania, Cars Land, New Fantasyland, etc.) with built in audience or thrill based (Everest, Soarin, Test Track, etc.) with heavy marketing schemes. The original or not super IP based dark ride is hard to find now. Mystic Manor is an outlier (and oh look, its successful and fantastic!) but even it came merchandising friendly with the Albert character. It seems that for a ride to be built, at least in the US parks, there needs to be a built in fanbase that loves the property, not the attraction.

Magic Kingdom Park Plan

This first post starts us off in the place that first inspired my love of theme parks. It is also a plan that many of you may be familiar with if you followed along with my previous blog. There are only a few content changes but I did evolve the graphic style a bit with realistic tree canopies and roof lines.

Below is a short descriptive walk through of the changes I propose to the Magic Kingdom and why.

Transportation to and from the entrance of the park has become a major issue at park open and close. Steps have already been taken to solve this problem including the expanded bus stops and extra ferry docks. Other steps I propose in this plan are to lengthen the Monorail stations to handle a train with an extra passenger car and to run both Express and Resort service trains on the resort beam during peak times. These small additions would not solve the problem, but would start to make a difference. Also in this plan are an added queue space on the north side of the station for the long queue that forms at park close time and a second Express queue ramp on the south side for when trains are running both Express and Resort on the same beam.

Starting in Main Street USA, the first change is the addition of a fully themed East side street, themed to turn of the century London. The addition of this bypass or street allows for better crowd flow during busy portions of the day such as parades, fireworks, and park close. At the intersection of this east street and Center Street is a new Mary Poppins dark ride. Guests board a carousel that literally unravels on a musical journey through Mary Poppins Jolly Holliday, riding through highlights from the film like “Step in Time” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.

Continuing on to the Hub, the only significant change is the renovation of the Tomorrowland Noodle Station into Walt’s, a fine dining restaurant that tells the story of Walt and the creation of the park, much like Walt’s Restaurant in Disneyland Paris. The dining rooms are themed to different lands and periods of Disney history with the highlight being the large central rotunda dining space with prime views to Cinderella’s Castle.

In Adventureland, there are a few major additions. Next to the Swiss Family Treehouse, an indoor theater is constructed, the Deep Jungle Theater, themed as a large canvas expedition tent, hidden away in the dense vegetation. Inside is a high energy musical performance of Tarzan, featuring Cirque du Soleil style acrobatics and a live band performing a rock influenced score. This is an important addition to the park because it expands the theater capacity of the park, something that is currently lacking. The Flying Carpets of Aladdin are removed to open up the walking space of the land. A new expanded dock is also built for the Jungle Cruise for dedicated wheelchair and disabled loading, preventing delays at the main dock and creating a more effective Scene 1.

The main expansion pad to the south of Pirates of the Caribbean is utilized to create a new mini-land for Adventureland. A smoldering volcano looms over the deep jungle and a path between the Jungle Cruise and the Pirates fort leads right to it. Guests enter a dark cave opening to find themselves inside the large cavern of the volcano, home to an early 19th century scientific mining operation. The main attraction of this area is a Journey to the Center of the Earth coaster/dark ride hybrid that takes guests to the depths of the volcano before escaping back to the surface. The cavern is full of kinetic motion as the Jungle Cruise, the Train, and the drilling car ride vehicles for the attraction all pass through it. On the water’s edge is a new table service restaurant, Vulcania Market Table, serving Caribbean cuisine, and the eating area for the Expedition Food Truck, serving snacks and drinks. This dark, mysterious, and heavily themed cavern fully builds out Adventureland.

Frontierland and Liberty Square see infrastructure and pathway changes with a new permanent bridge across the Rivers of America, resolving the bottleneck by Big Thunder Mountain and allowing access to the new expansion pads to the north. Therefore the Liberty Belle Riverboat will cease operations. This decision was difficult, but one that will eventually be necessary for crowd flow and safety. Movement is maintained on the river however with the return of a fleet of modified keelboats which can pass under the new bridges as well as the rafts which will continue operation even though the islands are accessible by path.

The Frontierland addition in the north expansion area is a massive stagecoach motion base ride. At the north end of the river, reached by path through the Island or by keelboat, is a small abandoned sheriff’s office. It begins a path that leads through the woods to a rocky cliffside, covering the train tracks and hiding a smugglers camp. Inside, just after passing under the train tracks, guests find themselves back outside at twilight in an abandoned western town. The sheriff has invited us to go out on patrol with him in search of the smugglers that used the cave as a base, leading us on a fast paced adventure through the dangers of the old west.

Between Liberty Square and this new Frontierland addition is a new land, New Orleans Harbor. A geographical and chronological transition piece between the New England of Liberty Square and the Old West of Frontierland, the land includes the permanently docked Liberty Belle Riverboat, a bakery, a table service recreation of Tiana’s Restaurant, and the Bayou Theater, home of a live musical production based on Princess and the Frog. The show uses a mix of puppetry and illusion to tell a condensed version of the musical, accompanied by a live jazz band. The highly atmospheric land comes alive with musicians and artists during the day and a bayou of simulated glistening fireflies at night.

The only addition to Liberty Square is the permanently docked and fully explorable sailing ship HMS Columbia. This ship functions as a dynamic icon for the land while also acting as a visual barrier separating Fantasyland and Frontierland, specifically blocking the view of Rapunzel’s tower from Frontierland.

Continuing to Fantasyland, there are some big additions. First Peter Pan’s Flight is replaced by A Tangled Tale, completing the Tangled inspired area. This classic dark ride tells a condensed version of the film, featuring all the musical highlights including a major “I Have a Dream” segment filled with singing thugs. Next door, Mickey’s Philharmagic is relocated to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and replaced by a large interactive trackless dark ride through the world of Frozen. This film’s instant and massive popularity makes it an easy choice for this large open spot in Fantasyland. Though it does reduce theater capacity in the park, it is a necessary sacrifice. If Frozen maintains its massive popularity, it could alternately warrant a full mini-land in the near future, possibly replacing or adjacent to Storybook Circus.

Moving on to Fantasyland Forest, some of the recent additions are expanded. Story Time with Belle is adapted into a full scale animatronic experience with the addition of two small rooms after the libraries, small enough to not impede the utilidor access area, bringing the total number of scenes in this experience to five from mirror room to exit. The focus of each room moves to animatronic heavy storytelling instead of meet and greet. The existing Wardrobe converses with new Babette and Mrs. Potts figures to set up the story. The libraries are redressed as the dining room and new figures of Cogsworth and many supporting characters are added for a large scale production of Be Our Guest. In the following new rooms, guests pass through the library where they meet Belle and listen to her and the enchanted objects discuss becoming human again. Guests then exit on the south side of the cottage.

The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is also expanded with an additional indoor mine scene on the east side, creating a longer ride. The track is reconfigured so there is still a significant outdoor portion above the new indoor scenes. This is a complex addition logistically, but could realistically be added during a major track replacement refurbishment after many years of operation to refresh the ride experience. Storybook Circus also gets a new major ride, an LPS dark ride through Mickey’s circus featuring animated characters from the entire Disney cannon placed into circus situations.

The final additions to Fantasyland create an urban environment for this side of the land. Behind a fantasy inspired London facade, a new E Ticket version of Peter Pan’s Flight is constructed, where larger capacity flying ships take guests through a longer and more detailed version of this classic attraction, complete with sophisticated animatronic figures and modern effects. Attached to the ride is a meet and greet with Tinkerbell, set inside the drawer in the Darlings’ house, filled with oversized objects. Nearby, an Alice in Wonderland area is created with the addition of Alice’s Curious Labyrinth and a retheme of Cosmic Rays Starlight Café as the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall. To complete the land, a new walkthrough nearby takes guests into the Dragon’s Crypt, home to a slumbering dragon, similar to the amazing experience at Disneyland Paris.

Between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland is the second new land of the park, Discoveryland, built on the site of the Speedway. This is a transitional space, designed as a fantasy-future steampunk environment, home to just one attraction. The docked Nautilus marks the entrance to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a simulator attraction that dives to the depths of the sea for an adventure with Captain Nemo. A counter service location themed to Around the World in 80 Days sits in the hangar for the iconic Hyperion balloon, forming the border between this land and Tomorrowland.

In Tomorrowland, the tone of the land is refined into an intergalactic world fair. Stitch’s Great Escape is replaced with a redeveloped version of Alien Encounter and the Laugh Floor is replaced with a motion base/3D-movie hybrid of the Time Machine where guests board an experimental machine for a disastrous trip through time. The existing round theater space is reconfigured into four individual simulator rooms with a preshow space in the center and uses a mix of projection mapping on physical sets and HD 3D projections along with a vehicle on a motion base to create a dynamic travel experience. The Carousel of Progress is replaced with an E Ticket Tron attraction on the first floor, expanding into a new showbuilding behind, and a transportation restaurant on the second floor. The ride takes us onto the grid where guests must evade the evil programs and find a way back home. Tomorrowland comes alive at night with kinetic motion and neon, creating the future we have always imagined.

Back in the Hub, a new fountain and projections package is installed for use during a new nightly castle show.

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Now I want to quickly do something a little different. As I keep on saying, I want this to be more than just a place I share my work. I want to use these projects to prompt quick and informative discussions about themed design. So with each post I'm going to share some thoughts about a particular subject related to the project, and I encourage you to comment with your views. This will probably start pretty slow since the website is just starting up, but that is ok.

For the Magic Kingdom, I originally wanted to discuss the complex and controversial debate about IP placement in the park, but I think I will save that for later. Instead, I've decided on debating the value of the walk through attraction. In the above plan I've proposed, I added two standard walk through attractions (The Labyrinth and the Dragon's Crypt), increased access to Tom Sawyer's Island, and turned a meet and greet into an animatronic based walk through. I personally like what walk throughs do for a park because they add a deeper layer of experience that reinforces the entire park as an attraction, not just the rides. All good walk throughs supplement a thematic experience of a land or area and allow the guest to travel one step deeper into that themed world.

The best application of walk throughs in a theme park is definitely Disneyland Paris Park, which has 5 distinct and wonderfully designed walking experiences. I visited the park last year and I have no trouble saying that some of these attractions, namely the Dragon's Crypt and Alice's Labyrinth, were among the highlights of an already great park. As much as I enjoyed them, they were also very lightly attended. Many times, my group were the only guests in them.

From some research, it seems that the common design thought is that walk throughs don’t work. Theme Park University has a story about the failure of the Goddard Group designed Baltimore Power Plant project and highlights the failure of the walk through as a reason for its closure. Environments that depend on a walk through as the main draw do not succeed for some reason. My best guess is that guests feel like a theme park is for attractions, not walking and looking. This is a problematic thought to a designer, because it suggests that in a sense the whole park walk through experience is unimportant when compared to the attractions in the park.

Overall however, I see place making value in the walk through attraction even with its attendance and capacity issues. It's never going to be the big draw or even hold a line, but it invaluably supports the thematic design strategy of the park. Not every guest will figure out its value, but it just makes a park that much more special to those who do.

What are your thoughts about walk through attractions in theme parks? Do you enjoy them and do they add to your overall experience or are they just something you skip? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading!